Facebook Debuts Antivirus Marketplace

The Facebook security team opened the doors to the Antivirus Marketplace, featuring free downloads and six-month licenses from Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Symantec.

The anti-virus offerings join other measures implemented by the social network’s security team, including its URL blacklist system, which scans trillions of links daily to weed out malicious URLs.

The free downloads and six-month licenses available via the Antivirus Marketplace are:

Microsoft: Microsoft Security Essentials

McAfee: McAfee Internet Security 2012

TrendMicro: Smart Surfing and Titanium

Sophos: Anti-Virus for Mac, Home Edition

Symantec: Norton AntiVirus

Those companies will also contribute to the Facebook security blog. More from Facebook security’s note on the debut of the Antivirus Marketplace:

Nothing is more important to us than the safety of the people who use Facebook, and the security of their data. The Facebook security team has pioneered many innovative defense systems against viruses, spam, and phishing attacks, as well as extensive automated enforcement mechanisms that quickly shut down malicious pages, accounts, and apps.

But our work doesn’t stop there. We also provide extensive controls, resources, and tools to all of you, so that you can better protect your account. In addition, we work with industry leaders to cooperate on important safety and security issues.

Now, all of Facebook’s more than 900 million users will be protected by the combined intelligence of these industry leaders. Our URL blacklist system, which scans trillions of clicks per day, will now incorporate the malicious URL databases from these security companies to augment our existing level of protection. This means that whenever you click a link on our site, you benefit not just from Facebook’s existing protections, but the ongoing vigilance of the world’s leading corporations involved in computer security. At the moment, less than 4 percent of content shared is spam (compared with nearly 90 percent of email), and we are looking forward to making even more progress in the future.

Truly effective security requires cooperation and we are excited about this partnership with many of the leaders in the security community to better help us defend against existing threats, anticipate new ones and arm people with the tools they need to protect themselves.